Feature

BY DAVID AKIN

Race matters.

The Toronto Star’s race and crime series is arguably one of the biggest computer-assisted reporting projects ever done at a Canadian newspaper — and one that has generated the most controversy

On Saturday,October 19th, the Star dropped a bomb on Toronto politics. Its front page declared that Toronto police treat black people differently than white people, a claim that, for the most part, news organizations have been able to make only with the help of anecdotal evidence.

This time, though, the Star had the numbers to back up the claim. The figures were drawn from a database maintained by the very police organization the newspaper was reporting on. “Race matters in Canadian society when dealing with the police,” the Star wrote.

At the time this article was written for Media magazine, the Star series was still front-page news in Toronto. Its implications have sparked a national debate. Black activists in Toronto called for immediate action; Toronto’s police chief and chiefs at other jurisdictions denied charges of racism and racial profiling; and, most ominously, the union representing Toronto’s police officers sued the Star for libel, demanding $2.6-billion in damages. [Because of the legal action by the police, Star reporters and editors involved in the series declined to write or speak about the series for Media magazine.]

The Star got to work on the series in March 2000 when the paper asked the Toronto Police Services for information contained in that force’s Criminal Information Processing System (CIPS). Most forces in the country, including the OPP and the RCMP, maintain a similar sort of database, which contains information on arrests and other incidents involving members of that force.

At first, Toronto police denied the Star access to CIPS. However, in 2001, with the weight of a favourable Ontario Privacy Commissioner behind it, the newspaper successfully negotiated with the police to get a modified form of CIPS. The Star said it was the first time someone from outside the police community was able to review those records.

In her article that set up the series, the paper’s managing editor, Mary Deanne Shears, wrote the following: “The database details more than 480,000 incidents in which an individual was arrested or ticketed for an offence, and nearly 800,000 criminal and other charges laid by the police from late 1996 to early 2002. “Our investigation of the information was meticulous; the results were submitted to an independent statistician from one of Toronto’s universities, who checked our methodology and agreed it was sound. “Our stories detail troubling facts surrounding minorities and police, and indicate it is time for the issue to be dealt with calmly and rationally. “We acknowledge that Chief Julian Fantino and senior officers on the force have made great efforts to reach out to minority communities

Despite their best efforts, the stories clearly show that race is indeed a factor and there are serious issues to be addressed. ” For each incident, the Star had the place of birth of the individual charged, the gender of the accused, the race of the accused, and other details about the incident, including time and location. Personal information, though,was excised from the database before it was turned over to the newspaper.

Early on, the Star’s research team picked a specific offense — simple possession of a banned narcotic – for the purposes of their analysis. The Star said it picked this offence because the arresting officer in these cases can employ a significant degree of discretion; deciding, for example,whether the accused should only be issued a summons to appear later at a police station for fingerprinting, or whether the individual should be handcuffed and jailed pending a bail hearing. The Star said there were 10,000 arrests for this type of behaviour from 1996 to the present.

Throughout the summer, a Star database reporter cleaned up the data and sorted through all the numbers while reporters conducted more traditional types of research. The Star said that in the published series of articles it noted where data were missing or incomplete. All the details from the investigation are online at www.thestar.com/race, but one of the key findings was that, for a drug possession offence, the police released 76.5 per cent of white offenders at the scene of the crime but just 61.8 per cent of black offenders were released at the scene.

Moreover, 7.3 per cent of white offenders were jailed overnight pending a bail hearing but more than double that —15.5 per cent — of black offenders went to jail until their bail could be arranged.

Ironically enough, this was probably news to the Toronto police; they’re forbidden by their own civilian board from analyzing crime data by race.

Craig Bromell, the head of the 7,200-member police union, said the Star erred by focusing on one narrow type of crime and that if it had looked at all crime incidents it would not have come to the same conclusion. “Put every offence and every arrest on paper and I can guarantee you these numbers are going to shrink dramatically, ”Bromell told a Star reporter.

Regardless, the Star’s CAR project on race and crime has forced an important issue into the spotlight. It’s another feather in the cap for the Star, which has long supported awardwinning CAR work in its own newsroom and in its sister papers, such as The Hamilton Spectator. The success of the Star’s project may also spur managers of other news organizations in the country to see what they might dig up with a few reporters who know how to use a database manager.

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David Akin reports on business issues for CTV National News and The Globe and Mail and is chair of the CAJ’s computer-assisted reporting caucus. Complete Contact Information at http://www.davidakin.com